TikTok has gained immense popularity with its short videos and the Chinese company that owns the app, ByteDance Inc is now poised to enter the music streaming business in a big way, reports Bloomberg. There were earlier reports of the company being in talks with top music companies in the US for rights. That effort does not seem to have succeeded so far. The company has however gone ahead and launched the music app, named Resso. A beginning has been made with just two emerging markets, India and Indonesia.
Resso will be a subscription-based app and the monthly fee to avail the full suite of services on the app is Rs 119 ($1.70). This is around the same amount that the popular music streaming app Spotify charges from its customers as well. The other subscription-based music app is Apple Music.
The Resso app is on a test phase right now and launched only a few weeks ago, around 27,000 people have downloaded/subscribed to it, according to a report.
On the features available on Resso, you can view the lyrics of the song being played in real-time and post your comments under individual songs, something similar to what you see on YouTube. Carrying the video uploading facility from TikTok, the Resso app permits users to add GIFs and videos accompanied by music. For the Indian market, the company has secured rights from music rights holders like T-Series and Times Music.
ByteDance’s efforts at entering the developed markets like the US and the UK will largely depend on its ability to sew up the contracts with big music companies there like Warner, Universal and Sony Music. TikTok has been able to grow rapidly in the US and it would be a great achievement for the Chinese company if it can launch the music app also there and find subscribers.
The company has been able to promote new singers on its platform who have gone on to gain massive popularity. Lil Nas X, the singer of “Old Town Road” is cited as an example.
It’s a tough call for any app to scale up its subscription base where there is payment involved, particularly in markets like India. However, for apps like TikTok, the difficulty is that revenue from advertisements is going down and they have to find other ways to shore up. Subscription income is definitely a solution. It may take a long time for it to grow a paid subscription base.